By Bert Hetebry 

China seems to be a threat to world peace if we look at the geopolitics being played to in the Pacific region.

There are two main players and Australia is being swept up in the battle for regional supremacy. But to gain a bit of understanding, to look behind the fear and power plays being acted out, it is probably a good idea to put some historical context to the rhetoric of fear and belligerence.

Where do we begin to explore the histories of the two largest economic powers in the world?

China has been a imperial power through most of the last 2000 years, yet very little Chinese history is taught. We hear of the Silk Road and the romanticised stories which go with that, Marco Polo’s adventures as he travelled, exotic tales of the Orient but very little about the imperial expansions and contractions over that time. It has traded with Europe and the Middle East using the Steppe Highway from Mongolia through Russia into northern Europe and a southern route using the Silk Roads from near Beijing to the Mediterranean Sea. These trade links throughout the ages has seen the flow of produce including silk and spices, culture and religions spread across the land mass.

Although there have been expansions and retractions of the size of Chinese Imperial holdings including the Tang Empire around 700CE, the widest was that of Ghenghis Khan, his sons and grandsons during the 13th century. Apart from those expansive empires, China has defended its lands very much around its current size. The cost of maintaining and defending an expanded territory across deserts and the central steppes proved to be more expensive than the amounts raised through trade and taxes. Throughout that time, threats came from the west, Russia and Turkey, so defences were built along its western and northern borders, but that changed in the 1700s through trade with the British culminating with the Opium wars of the 1800s, which came from the East, by sea.

British naval power for the first time in China’s history saw a threat coming from the east. For most of its history, China has not sought to expand its Imperial holdings but has actively defended its territory.

China’s interest has been in trade rather than territorial acquisition, the Rail and Road Initiative carries on that tradition with rail links across the Eurasian land mass and the protection of sea routes across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Protection of the South China Sea and the fortifying of various shoals and reefs are part of that initiative.

European and American ambitions are different. Europe and the Middle East has been contested throughout history with empires shifting through ancient times, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman through the centuries. Into the second millennium The Holy Roman Empire held sway over much of Europe until the Reformation and the 30 Year War, the Ottoman Empire from around 1500 till the end of World War I. But whereas the Chinese tended to be inward looking, European ambitions ended to go outside its borders, British, Netherlands, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian expansion through Africa and into Asia and the Pacific saw colonies established largely to extract produce, spices, raw materials for growing industrial capacity at home and to some extent, bragging rights.

Africa was carved up as it was claimed by European nations and the ‘discovery’ of the Caribbean and the Americas set off a plantation economy to further drive the European  quest for lands and the wealth that could be generated from it.

The quest for wealth included the recruitment of the cheapest possible labour to produce the greatest possible profits. Slavery, kidnapped Africans were shipped off to the new colonies to work ‘where no white man could work’, as thousands of slaves were traded to be farm workers and servants.

American independence in 1776 followed by Manifest Destiny, where the United States settlement grew to take the land from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans. The Spanish Wars where Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California were wrested away from Spanish Mexico, the taking of the Philippines in 1898, and Hawaii was annexed in 1898 for the US Navy to establish Pearl Harbour as a major base in the central Pacific.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has asserted it’s power in the Pacific, developing an arc of military bases stretching from Japan, through South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia, and a naval service facility in Singapore. In all there are over 200 American military bases in the West Pacific region.

In 1975, the US President Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong, ending a decades long isolation. The visit opened diplomatic relations and allowed American corporations to operate in China, tempted by a large and growing population and cheap labour. Corporations such as Coca Cola, Apple, General Motors, Nike, Motorola established manufacturing plants, KFC, Starbucks, Walmart were among the first to establish a foothold in fast foods and retailing to take advantage of a burgeoning middle class. Chinese industries now dominate the production of most consumer goods from vehicles to clothing, electronics and toys, there is hardly a product we can buy which is not available from China.

The trade imbalance between America and China has grown to average around $350 billion per year for the last twenty years. The imbalance has seen China buy US bonds, effectively integrating the two economies. If China revalues its currency upwards, it could lower the value of the American currency, neither would be good for either economy.

Resentment against China seems to be growing. In the US particularly, Chinese imports are used as a political tool, demonising the Chinese for undercutting American products, but American industry has sought lower manufacturing costs and have shifted manufacturing to cheap labour markets, including China.

Chinese interests in the South Pacific region has seen Australia move to better support ‘our Pacific family’ to counter Chinese influence. That support had fallen away during the Liberal governments between 2013 and 2022, and undermining of the trading and diplomatic relationship we had with China.

How is China a threat?

When we look at the history over the centuries, we see that China has little interest in gaining overseas colonies. It is, however, actively investing in other countries, including Australia to ensure an ongoing supply of raw materials for its growing industries. It has however spent comparatively little on bolstering its defence beyond he South China Sea.

China has also not engaged in any wars in recent years. The last war China was involved in was a minor engagement in the Sino-Vietnam war in 1979, and has four listed military bases in foreign countries, a listening station in Cuba, an army support base in Djibouti, a military post in Tajikistan and a naval base in Cambodia.

America on the other hand has over 200 military bases in the West Pacific, effectively blocking the South China Sea, as part of a network of over 750 military bases spread around the globe in 80 countries. Half the total of money spent on military expenditure, apart from funding wars, is spend by the USA. Since 2001 the US has spent $6 trillion on wars including Iraq and Afghanistan and has committed $26 Billion dollars to the ongoing war in Gaza plus $1 Billion in humanitarian aid.

So with all the fear generated, the commitment we have made to AUKUS and the trade we have with both America and China, how is China a threat not just to Australia but to America and the rest of the world?